GONE WITH THE WIND

GONE WITH THE WIND

This was on TMC last night and it's coincidentally Tricia's favorite movie so we watched it until Trish keeled over from fatigue. I stuck around and watched the whole thing again forgetting that it's a surprisingly effective movie despite the length. It has a modern feel that few classic movies have and it's not just the color photography. Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) is color and feels as old as any other Errol Flynn film. I credit production values. The burning and escape from Atlanta, the crane scene showing all the wounded men, the largeness of the sets set it apart from it's time. It also helps that Vivian Leigh had a natural acting style and Clark Gable was one of the great rogues of the day. What a travesty he lost Best Actor to Robert Donat. Donat got the award for playing a teacher that ages through the years. It's not bad acting, but seems like acting. Gable shows strength, humor, determination and they all feel natural. The wrong actor in that role could have sabotaged the movie. How many people have seen GOODBYE MR CHIPS?

I've only seen a few Leslie Howard movies, but his character here seems the same as the other Leslie Howard movie that I know well, THE PETRIFIED FORREST. In both movies he seems like a man of speeches rather than a man of action. Howard is the weakest link in the movie. How much better it would have been had Errol Flynn or Gary Cooper or even Robert Taylor played Ashley. Olivier could have been an interesting choice.

Olivia DeHavilland, on the other hand, is great as Melanie. She looks nothing like the DeHavilannd in Errol Flynn movies and she probably would have won the Oscar had Hattie McDaniel not been in the same movie. McDaniel is gone for long stretches, but you don't forget her and when she's on screen she can be commanding.

My favorite scene in the movie is not one often mentioned. The night that Ashley and some others go off to clean up the shanty town where Scarlett was attacked and Rhett Butler comes to the rescue. The traditional approach to such a scene would be the action at the shanty town, but Fleming (or which ever one of the directors did the scene) focuses on the ladies tense and waiting for an outcome. It helps that the Yankee captain coming to arrest them is Ward Bond, one of my favorite character actors. And using Belle Watley's bordello as their alibi is a nice dramatic choice that makes the Yankee captain blush in front of the ladies present. BOND: Rhett, do I have your word as a gentleman?
GABLE: As a gentleman, Tom, of course.

Rhett's language in the last scene crossed a barrier in movies, but almost as surprising is how the love story resolves itself. Movies trying to be big box office have rarely made the same choice.

Neither the movie nor book were created to be historically accurate, but they succeed because they are great examples of romantic literature. What Rhett and Scarlett get away with due to their brains and beauty allows the audience a guilty thrill of living it through them.